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Dessert

Sultana Roll and Claret Sauce

A frozen dessert of pistachio ice cream layered around whipped cream and brandy-soaked sultana raisins, served with a claret syrup sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and syrup match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,842 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Sultana Roll and Claret Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the raisins

  1. Boil sultana raisins for 5 minutes.

  2. Soak the sultana raisins in brandy for several hours.

  3. Drain the sultana raisins before using.

Assemble the roll

  1. Line one-pound baking powder cans with pistachio ice cream.

  2. Sweeten and flavor the whipped cream.

  3. Fill the center of the cans with the sweetened and flavored whipped cream.

  4. Cover the top with more pistachio ice cream.

  5. Pack the cans in ice and salt for 2 hours before serving.

Make the claret sauce and serve

  1. Boil 1 cup of sugar and 1/2 cup of water until a thick syrup forms.

  2. When the syrup is cool, add 1/3 cup of claret.

  3. Serve the claret sauce very cold over the sultana roll.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Sugar + syruptop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Pistachio + raisintop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together63 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

  3. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Cream + syruptop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,964 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Raisin + brandytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Sultana raisins
Add chewy texture and concentrated sweetness; soaking in brandy plumps them and adds aroma.
Pistachio ice cream
Forms the frozen outer shell and supplies cold, creamy structure around the filling.
Whipped cream
Creates a light, airy filling that stays soft even when frozen.
Sugar
Sweetens the whipped cream and, boiled with water, forms the syrup base of the sauce.
Claret
Adds acidity and wine aroma to the sauce, balancing the sweet syrup.

The step that matters

Packing the cans in ice and salt. Salt lowers the melting point of the ice, so the mixture gets cold enough to hold the ice cream firm for the full two hours. Without enough salt and ice, the roll softens and loses its shape before serving.

Swap the pistachio

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cream, raisin, brandy, sugar, syrup):

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Pistachiothe original
  4. Nutsfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, raisin, brandy, sugar, syrup. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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